WoW deleted

[Zich]

Is anyone aware of any virus scan software/viruses themselves that would cause this? I came home tonight to find both WoW and SCII are gone on my home PC. The shortcuts gave "file no longer exists" errors, and in the program files the 10gb game file is gone, however the support texts still exist.


Any idea what would cause this? I plan to upgrade to windows 7 as soon as my bro-in-law comes by with the disc, but that may be a few weeks. I want to reinstall but not if this could repeat, and obviously I don't want to wait 3 weeks to get on again

For info, I had a 30 day trial of AVG, its expired and not updating, let windows do its own thing, and I also use Clamwin (a coworker put it on there, it has updated in the last 24 hours, and I've never understood the program one bit, its user-friendliness is about nil). My gut says Clamwin screwed me, because its never done anything practical and is the only thing to update/change since the games dissappeared

[LavCat]

Is anyone aware of any virus scan software/viruses themselves that would cause this? I came home tonight to find both WoW and SCII are gone on my home PC. The shortcuts gave "file no longer exists" errors, and in the program files the 10gb game file is gone, however the support texts still exist.


Any idea what would cause this? I plan to upgrade to windows 7 as soon as my bro-in-law comes by with the disc, but that may be a few weeks. I want to reinstall but not if this could repeat, and obviously I don't want to wait 3 weeks to get on again

For info, I had a 30 day trial of AVG, its expired and not updating, let windows do its own thing, and I also use Clamwin (a coworker put it on there, it has updated in the last 24 hours, and I've never understood the program one bit, its user-friendliness is about nil). My gut says Clamwin screwed me, because its never done anything practical and is the only thing to update/change since the games dissappeared

Do you have a significant other or a cat?

[Tal]

Is anyone aware of any virus scan software/viruses themselves that would cause this? I came home tonight to find both WoW and SCII are gone on my home PC. The shortcuts gave "file no longer exists" errors, and in the program files the 10gb game file is gone, however the support texts still exist.


Any idea what would cause this? I plan to upgrade to windows 7 as soon as my bro-in-law comes by with the disc, but that may be a few weeks. I want to reinstall but not if this could repeat, and obviously I don't want to wait 3 weeks to get on again

For info, I had a 30 day trial of AVG, its expired and not updating, let windows do its own thing, and I also use Clamwin (a coworker put it on there, it has updated in the last 24 hours, and I've never understood the program one bit, its user-friendliness is about nil). My gut says Clamwin screwed me, because its never done anything practical and is the only thing to update/change since the games dissappeared

Sounds like Rose won. >.>

[Zich]

No, she was with me all day, and she's a part-time WoW player, her account is off for now because her life is so insanely busy Sept-Dec, she is friendly to the game...

What confuses me is it is both WoW and SCII, and no other games/files/programs were affected. Neither of us has even touched SCII in 2 months (Rose played a bit after her brother bought us a copy, but hes never online because of college and the multi-play thru battlenet was too hardcore for her taste).

I was playing WoW Thursday night, and we were barely at the PC Friday.

No one else was in the house, and the PC was shutdown. Mindy cat can be a destructive force, I don't think she has the competence to fire up the PC and then choose to delete 2 game files that are pretty darn hard to find with windows vista's idiotic division of games vs normal program files (you can see game shortcuts, but not files, and the files dont show up with other programs like all other program).

I've seen nothing on WoW forums about this, so I think its something else on my PC that has caused it.. so, any serious guesses?

[RTM]

Did you check the Recycle Bin? How about search the whole HD for the missing files? I guess it's possible they could have gotten moved. I would be very surprised to find that a virus scanning program of any type would remove those files. Are any other programs on the PC affected? Have you scanned for malware?

[Zich]

Recycle bin was empty, but upon searching i found the bulk of the files, still where they should have been though WoW is no longer displayed in the games folder. All .exe are missing (WoW.exe, repair.exe, etc) so now I am further convinced of something AV related. So, I am still in limbo since key files are missing and I can't run any updaters or repairs. Still looks like a new install is needed to fix it, but i should have my mods saved at least.

[shoju]

What Antivirus do you use?

AVG recently classified the Launcher as malware, and it could have wiped out the launcher and related exe files.

[Zich]

I had AVG trial running, but that expired 2 weeks ago and I didn't convert to free or run it since. I did try AVG with caution, as 2 friends recently had to reinstall their OS's when AVG deleted key windows files. I have removed AVG since, I just wanted it to run a 'second opinion' scan last month when my PC was acting odd.

The other AV I use(d) was Clamwin, which did update Friday. Clamwin had a tendency to do whatever the hell it wanted, while not informing the user of any actions it had taken. Also I can find no way to access records of scans, names of suspect files, or if it even has a chest that it sticks suspects in. I think Clamwin just deletes and bypasses recycle bin. The coworker who built my machine put it on there, and says its good stuff, but it feels hands-off built for business use. I think its design is to keep dummies from messing up the company's PCs, either way I never liked it and it too has been removed.

I have gone back to Avast & Spybot since this happened, just because I am familiar with both. Probably should have done so months ago >.<